Information Centric Networking is an emerging networking approach that aims to address many of the shortcomings inherent with Internet Protocol (IP) networking. One specific approach to Information Centric Networking, also known as Content-Centric Networking (CCN) and/or Named Data Networking (NDN), appears to be gaining mindshare in the research community and in industry, and promises to significantly improve network scalability, performance, and reduce cost in comparison to a network built on the IP. CCN/NDN provides native and elegant support for client mobility, multipath connectivity, multicast delivery and in-network caching; many of which are critical for current and future networks, and all of which require inefficient and/or complex managed overlays when implemented in IP. Further, CCN/NDN provides a much richer addressing framework than that existing in IP, which could eliminate significant sources of routing complexity, as well as enabling client devices to utilize multiple network attachments (e.g. multiple radio links) simultaneously for reliability or greater performance and/or for enabling content retrieval from an on-path cache.
A significant hurdle that stands in the way of deploying a CCN-only network is that many, if not all, of the applications in-use on corresponding network devices today (both client and server) are built to use IP. This hurdle could be addressed by requiring that all applications be rewritten to use CCN natively, however, this is a tall order in a world with millions of smartphone apps, devices, etc. Another approach could be to deploy a hybrid network in which the routers support forwarding both IP and CCN, however, this adds cost and complexity to the network, both in terms of equipment and in terms of operations. One non-limiting aspect of the present invention contemplates a way to eliminate these hurdles by establishing an IP over CCN capability that is transparent to the IP applications on either end, i.e., source and destination, IP-dependent devices.